SBIR-STTR Award

The goal of this project is to establish human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) as a new human vaccine vector platform. In non-human primate models, CMV-vectored vaccines have shown unprecedented protection against immunodeficiency viruses and similar vaccines are currently being evaluated for their protective potential against a number of infectious diseases and cancer. CMV-vectored vaccines represent a paradigm shift in vaccinology due to a) continuous antigen production and thus immune stimulation, b) their ability to overcome vector-specific immunity which enables repeated use of the same vector, c) the finding that spread- deficient vectors maintain long-term immune stimulation. A major barrier to translate the pre-clinical results into a vaccine for human use is the fact that all pre-clinical studies were performed using animal CMVs that do not infect humans. Since HCMV-based vectors have never been tested in humans the optimal characteristics of a human vector are unknown and an appropriate HCMV-vector backbone has yet to be selected and designed. Unfortunately, all currently available recombinant HCMV clones display genetic lesions and/or tissue culture adaptations that are expected to limit their usefulness as vector platform. Moreover, most of these clones were obtained from primary isolates of symptomatic and/or immune-suppressed individuals raising the possibility of increased pathogenicity and adaptation to an immunosuppressed environment. To overcome these limitations and to establish a clear path to regulatory approval of a new HCMV-based vector platform we propose to establish a panel of novel HCMV isolates from asymptomatic carriers, isolate and characterize molecular clones by bacterial artificial chromosome technology as well as genome sequencing. We will further introduce specific genomic modifications analogous to those observed in animal CMVs to increase immunogenicity and safety. The resulting vectors will be prioritized according to their stability during in vitro culture, viral yeld, and ability to infect different cell types. Upon completion of this project we will have a well-documented HCMV clones with optimal in vitro growth characteristics as a backbone for designing safe vaccines for HIV and other infectious diseases.

Public Health Relevance:
The goal of this project is to isolate and characterize molecular clones of human cytomegalovirus. After inserting antigens from other pathogens this clone will then be used as a new vaccine against these pathogens.

The ultimate goal of this project is to develop an immunotherapy for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-1 based on a spread-deficient cytomegalovirus (CMV)-derived vaccine expressing 'tailored' antigens designed for maximal coverage of clade B epitopes. In non-human primate models, rhesus CMV-vectored vaccines demonstrated unprecedented protection against highly virulent simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). After initial infection, SI was ultimately cleared from protected animals suggesting that CMV-vectors can provide a therapeutic effect in infected individuals. CMV vectors are unique in multiple aspects: they can induce and maintain high levels of circulating and tissue-resident effector memory T cells even when vectors are spread-deficient in vivo. Moreover, in the absence of viral gene products that control T cell priming, CMV vectors induce T cells to unconventional epitopes including MHC-II restricted CD8+ T cells. Importantly, CMV vectors can be used repeatedly and in CMV-positive hosts without loss of immunogenicity. HIV sequence diversity poses a challenge to HIV vaccine design. However, unlike prophylactic vaccines which strive to achieve the broadest possible coverage of HIV sub-species, therapeutic vaccines can be tailored towards the actual strains present in an infected individual. In this proposal, we will therefore test the hypothesis that a tailored vaccine cocktail selected from a small vaccine panel containing HIV antigens optimized for T cell epitope coverage of a given HIV clade are superior with respect to inducing 'relevant' T cell responses as compared to non-tailored approaches. We will use novel algorithms to design tailored antigens that maximize epitope-matches and we will insert these antigens into a new human CMV-vector backbone developed at TomegaVax during phase I of this proposal. We will monitor epitope specific T cell responses against specific HIV-strains using a recently developed NHP model for HCMV. Based on these results, we will design our final vaccine cocktail. To facilitate manufacturing of HCMV vectors under good manufacturing practices (GMP) we will generate a complementing master cell bank based on preliminary data showing, for the first time, HCMV growth in a cell type previously used for the manufacturing of unrelated viral vaccines. Upon completion of this project, we will have a designed, characterized, and developed a manufacturing strategy to generate clinical grade HCMV/HIV vector products.

Thesaurus Terms:
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